Can­dice Bai­ley

As a busi­ness de­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant, I am al­ways re­search­ing; seek­ing to un­der­stand en­tre­pre­neur­ial trends, psy­cho­log­i­cal states and per­sua­sive in­flu­ences.

One of the things I learned from very young is bal­ance, so I have this for­mal side, and I al­so have the more cre­ative side in my prod­uct busi­ness where I sell al­co­hol-based cock­tails in dif­fer­ent forms; bot­tled, frozen (pen­na­cools and lol­lies), shots, truf­fle cups, to name a few. Em­bark­ing up­on this has taught me a myr­i­ad of things that I have been able to ap­ply to the work that I do for my clients, and it has helped me to cre­ate more sus­tain­able, ef­fec­tive strate­gies as well.

In this pan­dem­ic, I have been af­ford­ed time and peace of mind to be able to plan, test and cre­ate new prod­ucts and pro­grammes for both busi­ness­es. There have been lessons to be learnt in the sim­plest of tasks, with the most re­cent be­ing while mak­ing these shots on May 20, re­al­is­ing that sin­gle-coloured shots are sim­ple and easy-peasy, but con­trast­ing­ly with mul­ti-coloured. They re­quire more care, at­ten­tion and a strate­gic mind­set.

Les­son 1: Knowl­edge of In­puts

You have to know the max­i­mum amount of al­co­hol that can be used in cre­at­ing a mix­ture that will set prop­er­ly. In busi­ness, you have to know the right mix to cre­ate a good bal­ance that would en­sure suc­cess. Are you mar­ket­ing enough? Is fi­nan­cial man­age­ment need­ed? Is the busi­ness ful­ly com­pli­ant, legal­ly?

Les­son 2: Vi­sion

Be­fore­hand, you must know how you want your shot to look in or­der to know how to lay­er it cre­ative­ly. In busi­ness, you must be cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive in or­der to lay out your vi­sion of op­er­a­tions ef­fec­tive­ly, us­ing the right con­tent, in the right con­text and at the right time. In­vest time to cre­ate a Busi­ness Plan, a sim­ple, con­cise one-pager will do fine.

Les­son 3: Pa­tience in Build­ing

Each lay­er of the shot must set prop­er­ly be­fore adding an­oth­er, oth­er­wise it will fold. In busi­ness, we tend to rush a lot of some func­tions and don’t ex­hib­it the pa­tience re­quired to al­low things to ef­fec­tive­ly fall in­to place. En­sure that you are legal­ly com­pli­ant be­fore mar­ket­ing and brand­ing, as you can en­counter nu­mer­ous un­pleas­ant cir­cum­stances mov­ing for­ward. The stronger your foun­da­tion, the high­er you can build.

Con­struc­tion 101!

Les­son 4: Savour the Taste

This type of Shot calls for dili­gence. It can be con­sumed in two sec­onds. In busi­ness, you can be hit with any­thing and be forced to a com­plete halt.

En­joy your jour­ney, and learn from the mis­takes you make. Give your­self the cred­it you de­serve.

Some peo­ple are just go­ing to see how pret­ty the Shot is, and not see the hard work that went in­to pro­duc­ing it, while, some are just go­ing to see your suc­cess and not see the hard work that went in­to get­ting there.